“What’s wrong with being fat? That’s what I want to know…It’s terrible to be thin and whispy because, you know, you could get knocked over by a strong wind or something. Fat is beautiful.” — Jim Morrison.

Jim Morrison of the Doors wasn’t known for his culinary tastes, but he loved to eat. In this interview, revived by a PBS project known as “Blank on Blank,” the lead singer talked to the journalist Howard Smith about his love of food, recounting that in college he never missed a dorm meal, and that he especially loved mashed potatoes. He gained a lot of weight, but he saw no problem with it: “I felt like a large mammal, a big beast.”

Another gem from this 1969 interview came after Morrison talked about how “solid” he was in college from eating so many servings of mashed potatoes in the school cafeteria: “When I moved through the corridors, I’d feel like I could knock anybody out of my way. I was solid, man!”

Jim influenced my art my entire life with his macabre and surreal lyrics and poetry. You can see my portrait of the Lizard King I created in memoriam recently on the 40th anniversary of his death. It’s on my artist’s blog at [dregstudiosart.blogspot.com]